Winter finishers are in the business of converting feed into beef as cost efficiently as possible. Indoor finishing is high cost and always poses a profitability challenge.

Profit is generated mainly from the margin between buying and selling price. Traditionally, for viable winter finishing, a clear spring beef price lift was generally regarded as essential (autumn spring beef price differential of 10% to 15% (40c to 50c/kg)).

Intensive finishing systems are also highly exposed to variation in concentrate and store price, with store animal cost accounting for 70%, and feed costs accounting for 25% of total production costs. A shift in any one of these variables can quickly erode the profit-making potential of the enterprise.

While farmers have little control over store and beef price, feed cost and animal performance are fully within their control and can be influenced to improve profit margins. As such, choosing the most cost-effective feed options maximises animal performance, reduces cost of production and therefore improves profit margins.

Feed efficiency and duration

Genetic and environmental factors influence feed efficiency. Bulls are inherently more efficient than steers, due to naturally occurring male hormones. Typically, liveweight gain is 10% higher, carcases are 11% heavier and lean meat yield is 20% greater for bulls than steers.

Within gender, breeding plays a large part in determining feed conversion efficiency (FCE). Continental breeds are more feed efficient than early-maturing breeds, especially in terms of lean muscle growth. Irish data from Tully indicates a 14-15% difference in efficiency between these breeds.

The length of the feeding period is also very important for feed efficiency. For steers and heifers, feed utilisation is highest at the start of the finishing period, but decreases with time. So on high-concentrate diets, steers should be within 100kg to 120kg of slaughter, or a maximum of 70 to 80 days on a diet of ad-lib meal before feed efficiency and growth rate falls.

Young bulls can maintain high gains for in excess of 200 days. In fact, intensive, high-energy concentrate diets truly exploit the natural biological efficiency of the bulls. But bear in mind that feeding bulls into high carcase weight, while efficient, may be uneconomical due to market specification.

Other environmental factors can also influence liveweight gains, including the previous history of the animal, weight for age, diet type, feeding management and husbandry. These should be taken into account.

Feed cost and carcase gain

Carcase gain is essentially what a finisher gets paid on. So when examining feed costs, always express them on a cost per kg carcase or liveweight gain. On high concentrates, the proportion of liveweight gain deposited as carcase is quite high at 70% of total – ie, 1kg of liveweight gain is equivalent to 0.7 kg/carcase gain. On a silage/concentrate diet, offered at ratio of 50:50, steers deposit 65% of liveweight gain into the carcase gain.

Importantly, low feed cost per day is not always translated into the most economical finishing option. For instance, your feed costs per day could be low, but if you’re not achieving high gains, cost per kg of carcase gain could be high (uneconomical) and the number of days to slaughter increases.

Finishing diet specification

Finishing diets should be high in energy and also contain the right balance of protein, minerals and vitamins to ensure efficient feed utilisation. The most important dietary components to consider for beef cattle finishing are energy (>0.94UFV) and protein (12-13% crude protein).

Once a finishing diet meets the animal requirement for these key nutrients, the individual ingredients are of little significance, provided that high levels of low-quality feed ingredients are not included.

For concentrates, the focus should be on simple standard mixes consisting of three to four high-energy straights of adequate nutrient spec for finishing cattle.

Silage quality

As most finishing operations are based on grass silage diets, it is important to have properly preserved silage of high digestibility (70% to 76% DMD).

The higher the silage quality, the less meal is required. Generally, in finishing steer diets, grass silage should not make up more than 50% of the overall diet to maintain target performance.

The feeding value of silage is a product of its intake and digestibility. Silage intake improves by 25% to 30% as digestibility is raised from 60% to 75% DMD.

So to reduce the cost and improve margins from finishing, a high weight gain from silage is vital. Based on silage analysis, the amount and type of concentrates that need to be fed can be determined. For example, good quality silage (>70 DMD) can sustain a liveweight gain in finishing steers of 0.6 kg/day. To sustain a target gain of 1.0 kg/day, a meal input of 5.5kg/day would be required.

In order to maintain performance of 1kg/day, concentrate levels for finishing cattle need to be increased by 1.25-1.5kg for every five-unit drop in DMD.

On moderate quality silage of about 65% DMD, finishing animals would need to be supplemented with up to 7kg of meal to maintain performance. This clearly emphasises that there is no role for poor to moderate quality silage in the beef finishing system. Indeed, when grass silage is below 70% DMD, other feed options need to be considered as more economical.

In recent times, the variability in silage quality and increased production costs have forced many winter finishers to remove silage from their finishing diets and many have moved to alternative feeding options, which include maize silage, whole crops, beet and the high concentrate-based diets.

Relative to grass silage-based diets, some of these finishing options offer benefits such as shorter finishing periods and lower labour and housing requirements. And, more importantly, a predictable level of performance can be more readily achieved.

Diet feed costs

The feed cost of continental steers on different finishing diets is presented in Table 1. At current feed prices, to finish steers over a standard feeding period costs €223 to €247 per animal, depending on diet offered.

Standard grass silage supplemented with concentrates is the most expensive finishing option for steers, at 10% more expensive than high concentrate diet and 5% dearer than maize or fodder beet diet options. In simple terms, feeding steers on high concentrate or high moisture grains diets is €24/head cheaper than silage-based options, with cost per kg carcase gain of €2.78 and €3.09 for the high-concentrate and standard silage diets.

While the fodder beet-based finishing diet is the most competitive on paper, it does not take into account added labour, specialised feeding equipment and storage facilities needed for this option.